Octopus Overlords

I think I'll tap the hivemind here and see if anybody is using anything other than Quickbooks to manage two (very) small business. I'm looking for some software that would let me track things like invoices, hours worked on a project basis, and expenses by integrating with a bank account. I do a lot of it now on spreadsheets and also do a lot of the tax filing except for the yearly returns (which my CPA does), so being able to organize data to file 941s (for instance) would be nice. Also a calendar function to help track due dates for things such as said 941s.

For a FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) solution, GnuCash is a solid choice. The learning curve is steeper than something like QuickBooks to begin with, but if you persist and stick with it you'll find it's well worth the effort. There are also several Youtube videos and tutorials that should help you get up to speed. For example, here's a useful introduction that walks you through the UI and set-up process in GnuCash:



However, one important feature GnuCash lacks is inventory management. So if that's something you are likely to require, I'd suggest using the free desktop edition of Manager instead. Come to think of it, you may find the Manager UI a little easier to work with vs. GnuCash, so perhaps try that first. They provide many useful guides to get started with Manager and they also provide decent online support in their forum.

Thanks!

I'm realizing though I probably need an iphone app to go along with it, which is likely to push me into the cloud realm. Reason is that it's hard on my off hours when I usually do a lot of this stuff to get time in my office. On the other hand while family might be just hanging out, the ability to generate an invoice or update my time spent on a project that day would be great.